Inside paradise island plagued by tribal wars where warriors fight drones with bows & arrows… & why it’s a ‘time bomb’

RAGTAG tribal warriors are using bows and arrows to fight AI drones and elite special forces in a brutal conflict that is set to erupt into all out war, an exiled leader has warned.

The simmering brawl between the Indonesian army and jungle guerrillas in West Papua has now become a "time bomb" that's going to explode.

Independence leader Benny Wenda has told The Sun that Indonesia's new president Prabowo Subianto wants Papuan people gone from their half of the tropical island.

The exiled independence fighter has lived in Oxford for two decades after he was forced to flee and Indonesia slapped an Interpol Red Notice on him.

Now Wenda has accused Subianto of trying to ethnically cleanse and "Indonesize" his people.

He said: "President Subianto is a war criminal in West Papua and his gun is full of blood."

But the hardy villagers are not going to give in and have been fighting against Indonesia's soldiers since the 1960s - even using only bows and arrows.

Not much is known about what goes on inside West Papua as Jakarta has banned journalists from visiting.

But, activists groups claim Indonesian soldiers have carried out extrajudicial killings and torture.

In response, independence fighters have protested, rioted, and even kidnapped pilots who they think could be spies, like New Zealander Philip Mehrtens.

Wenda said Indonesia wants to control West Papua as it is rich with natural resources like timber and has the world's largest copper and gold mine.

Subianto also wants Indonesia to achieve food self-sufficiency and sees West Papua as potentially being the country's rice basket.

Wenda is worried Subianto - an autocratic former general who came to power at the end of 2024 - is now acting even more aggressively in controlling the remote province.

He said: "Indonesia has stolen our sovereign state, and we are right to defend ourselves, our people, our land, our forests, our mountains, our rivers.

"They [Indonesia] want to wipe out entire population, so that the Indonesian population increases in West Papua."

Indonesia has a population of some 278million people and it is expected to grow to 355million in 2055.

Subianto has revived a colonial Dutch programme to encourage Indonesians from to move to West Papua and work on farms - known as transmigration.

There are well over a million transmigrants thought to live in West Papua, but official numbers are a state secret.

Wenda says the policy will displace Indigenous Papuans, destroy the environment, and ultimately increase bloodshed.

Indonesia sends some of its best troops to guard its settlers and suppress any protests by the natives.

They're now backed by AI-powered mini helicopter drones which are able to automatically swarm together and bomb a target.

Wenda claims one such crafted dropped mortar bombs on villagers deep in the jungle mountains in 2021.

"Home guard" guerrillas in the remote and mountainous jungle are also now more aggressive in fighting back as Indonesia encroaches on their land, Wend said.

Wenda declared: "We are defending [our land], we are guardians, the military.

"They [guerrillas] call themselves military even if they have a bow and arrow - but they are proud of themselves for defending the land."

Wenda said that West Papuans were not scared of Indonesia and a new generation were willing to be more combative.

"We are already fighting almost 60 years. Indonesia never defeated our guerrilla movement, [we use] just bow and arrow."

West Papuans have rioted, protested, and fought against their Indonesian overlords for years - with innocents being caught up in the fighting.

Guerrillas kidnapped Kiwi pilot Mehrtens when he flew a helicopter in February 2023 into the isolated highlands.

He was held at gunpoint for 19 months until he was released in September.

That band of guerrillas had gone rogue when they kidnapped Mehrtens - who they thought had come to spy on them, Wenda said.

Wenda said he represents all the independence fighters, but he doesn't have control over the rag-tag fighters.

He doesn't even know how many soldiers he has under his command.

That's because, separated by dense bush and living in mud huts, the disparate tribes of West Papua speak wildly different languages and have their own governance systems.

But Wenda thinks his troops can win any fight as they can live as part of the jungle.

"We are part of nature, the Indonesians are only just on the road but when they come to the bush, I don't think they can survive.

Wenda's first option for independence is for a diplomatic solution as it would be "very difficult" to fight win a war with "bows and arrows", he said.

He said: "We are, in a kind of traditional way, defending our land, defending our rights. And it's very difficult."

During the 2024 election campaign, Subianto labelled Papuan rebels as “terrorists” who “burn schools and kill civilians” in an interview with Al Jazeera.

He said: "This is our national territory. We are not guided by NGOs. We will be guided by our national interests."

Prabowo rose through the ranks in Indonesia's Army before becoming president and spent time in West Papua in the 1990s crushing the independence movement.

Indonesian forces have been regularly accused of human rights abuses in their decades-long battle against the Papuan independence movement.

In November, Subianto visited sugarcane plantations which activists claimed had destroyed millions of hectares of virgin rainforest and brought more ethnic Javans onto the island.

The Sun has contacted the Indonesia foreign ministry and President's office for comment.